Potluck Ladies: The Universal Appeal of Storytelling “From Within”
Imagine the story of first-generation South Asian immigrant women living in the Toronto suburbs with their children, while their husbands, unable to find jobs in Canada that match their qualifications, remain abroad to work. To combat loneliness and build connection, these women meet on a regular basis for potluck lunches, creating bonds that will stick with them through thick and thin as their seemingly perfect lives start to crumble. Now, imagine that story being told without any clichés, but rather with subtlety, humour and tenderness, and from an authentic South Asian immigrant feminine perspective. That’s Potluck Ladies for you, a four 30-min episode dramedy series produced, directed and created by Shazia Javed, and currently available on Hollywood Suite and Yes TV.
Now & Next Lead Editor Gaëlle Essoo sat down with Shazia Javed and lead actress Natasha Krishnan for an inspiring conversation about the importance of diverse, authentic and nuanced storytelling, the impact of policy changes fostering diversity and inclusion, and the experiences of South Asian women in film and television, this as the series recently won the Independent Pilot – Drama award at SeriesFest 2024.
Q: Shazia and Natasha, congratulations on taking the top prize at Seriesfest for Potluck Ladies. What does this award represent to you?
Shazia Javed: You know, it means international recognition and validation that authentic stories are entertaining and universal. To watch it along with such diverse audiences at Series Fest, with members of different ethnicities and cultures in that one room, and to see them respond so well to the jokes or the storylines, I think that's the best award.
This reiterated for me that if a story is well told then it will appeal to large & universal audiences from across borders and ethnicities.
As racialized creators we are often told that our stories don't have a 'large audience'. I am convinced that this myth is a gatekeeping tool. The truth is our stories have global and transnational audiences just as much as they have Canadian audiences. People want to understand each other and see their own humanity reflected.
Potluck Ladies is also evidence that when BIPOC owned companies are directly supported they can and they do achieve great results. Shout out to broadcasters Hollywood Suit and YES TV for taking the step and doing the actual work of commissioning this story and letting us stay authentic to our voice.
Natasha Krishnan: To what Shazia said, it was really incredible to see our content, which is told through a South Asian female lens, resonate with a predominantly non-South Asian audience, at a festival like Series Fest in Denver, and that speaks volumes to the issues that are highlighted in the show! It's so universal and there's people from all walks of life who are able to take something away from it. And why not? Potlucks are so universal, you know, just to see these women coming together, spending time together, sharing delicious food…
I'm sure all kinds of different people have been through issues surrounding divorce or gone through traumas around body shaming and stigmas around mental health. The fact that the show highlights so many relevant issues, but in such a clever way, is just amazing. And there were so many people at SeriesFest who came up to me, who were not South Asian, and who said that they could relate to my character or a different character on the show. It was very nice to see that.
Q: Potluck Ladies shows a reality that exists within some immigrant communities here in Canada but that is not necessarily well-known: the daily lives of wives and children who live here while the husband/father works abroad. Why was it important to tell this specific story?
Shazia Javed: I have this burning need to tell stories about first generation immigrant South Asian women, because I'm one of them. And whenever I've seen stories about first-gen South Asian women, they are told from somebody else's point of view or they're like a plot point in somebody else's story. Usually you would just see this helicopter parent, who's overly obsessed with their child's life and who has huge ambitions for their children. You know, they want their child to become a doctor or engineer, but we never ever hear about what SHE wants.
Who was she when she came to this country? What were her dreams? What are her aspirations? What are her challenges? What are her joys? What makes her happy? What makes her sad? And it's almost like as a society, we have all accepted that first generation immigrants are here to make great sacrifices for the following generations, you know? We just put our head down and do whatever jobs, be underemployed. It doesn't matter what happens to us as long as we're creating a better life, a better future for our children. And I'm like, no, I'm here. We are here. We have our own skills. We have our own potential. And I'm here for me. I want opportunities for myself.
The other thing that was really important to me was exploring the themes of friendship and sisterhood. Because when you leave the whole family, your friends and your entire network behind, you build these relationships that help you through the thick and thin. And I felt like this particular setting of the “Wives Condo” offered me a really ripe ground to explore these themes. And include all the subtext around body shaming, cultural taboos and stigmas within the community.
I also wanted to talk about these people who are qualified, but not able to find jobs matching their qualifications here, resulting in fragmented families. The women are left behind, so how do they get by? So, I took that real-life setting and then created fictional stories around them, which are heavily inspired by stories of real-life women that I have known.
Q: Natasha, in comparison to your previous experiences in acting, how did the portrayal of this particular character, Sumaira, differ?
Natasha Krishnan: I was very, very fortunate that this role came my way and I think it came my way for a very good reason. The topics highlighted in the show are very relatable. It's about the immigrant experience in Canada and I am an immigrant myself. So for me, to be a part of this story is so vital and so important, and that’s also because it's told from the lens of a woman. I come from a single-parent home, so the topics that are discussed in the show, like the taboos around divorce, resonated with me so much.
Normally when you see stories around South Asians, it's very stereotypical and the depiction is always centered around topics of arranged marriages or how the children have to please the parents to find a relationship, or pretend that they're in one. So I felt like this was so refreshing, because there's so much more to our stories. I've come across so many immigrants who are struggling to find jobs related to their qualifications.
Also, we are just coming out of a pandemic where we were so isolated, the entire world came to a standstill. And here you have a story that speaks about the importance of community, friendship and sisterhood. My character, Sumaira, is someone who battles with mental health and has panic attacks because of her lived experiences. But slowly, she's able to see community and friendship in these women and slowly open up to them and warm up to them.
Q: What's really fascinating is that your character, Sumaira, comes off initially as this career-oriented person who maybe thinks of herself as “above” the other ladies in a way, convinced that she does not need those “potluck lunches” as much as them. And then, she realizes that this sense of community and belonging is actually so deeply rooted in what she desperately needs!
Natasha Krishnan: I think Shazia did such a brilliant job in highlighting these topics, and in such a subtle way, which has opened up so much conversation. And I think that's brilliant because it's not so often that you see a character like Sumaira, who comes from such a conservative background, but she's portrayed as a strong, assertive, driven, ambitious woman, and she has a husband who backs her up fully. And I think that's so important to foster stories like that because we inherently come from a culture that is patriarchal. It's so important to have those conversations around the importance of having husbands who support your career and who allow you to live life on your own terms and to be unapologetic about it.
Shazia has lived with these characters for so long too, and she's spent so much time with them. I really wanted to do justice to her vision.
Q: What’s empowering is that we're seeing more and more stories that are showcasing diversity on screen, but also representation behind the camera. I wanted to hear your perspective on that unique experience of having a crew that is truly representative of the characters that are shown on screen.
Shazia Javed: I'm extremely proud of the set that I built, the team that I built. And I think that it was only possible because I produced this myself. It's the most challenging job up there. I direct, I write, I showrun, and having done all these jobs, I can clearly say producing can be very stressful, especially if you don't have generational wealth to fall back on. But it was important to me to produce exactly for this reason: I didn't want to be a token South Asian person on my own show. I wanted to build this team of people who I knew could support the vision and who would then bring their own authentic selves to the set and to the story. I didn't have to worry about whether the makeup will be done for the correct skin tone or not. Same thing with the costume designer. You have seen what an important part the costumes play in the story, where women are coming together for potlucks, how they're dressed versus when they're in their own spaces. So having somebody who already understands how we might dress in these different spaces was really important to me.
I’m proud that I was able to create opportunities for other BIPOC creatives who have the experience, the passion, and who are just ready to take on that lead role. And I think that authenticity can be felt on the show. Audiences are smart. They get it when you're trying to make it up versus when it's naturally there. So I think that's also this whole question of who gets to tell your stories, who gets to build their career off of them?
Q: Shazia, you’ve incorporated many nuances and sub-themes in the script, and it showcases how incredibly diverse and complex the South Asian community in Canada, as well as the challenges and situations they face, are. Yet, the tone of the series remains light and there is no grand ambition of solving every problem either. Did you go in with those specific intentions, and was there a particular writing process that you used?
Shazia Javed: I wanted to tell an entertaining story. I think anything you want to say is way more effective if people are entertained. They will see the humanity in the stories. I grew up in India and spent half my life there and I've come across such diversity and richness among South Asian women. When I came here I made so many friends from Pakistan, from Bangladesh and from Sri Lanka, and they're all South Asian! People have these “cross-border” friendships, which only Canada makes possible! I mean, in which world would an Indian and Pakistani be friends and be having potlucks together? It's not possible in any other world, because they're supposed to be political enemies.
The same thing goes for these interfaith friendships, especially with the context of this political hatred where people of different faiths are being pitted against each other all the time. And then what if they are a religious minority from where they come from? And then when they come here, they meet each other, that can also become a common ground and they can lend support to each other. And that's one way to get rid of stereotypes and of that hatred which may have been instilled.
Going in, I knew I wanted to touch upon all these themes. It wasn't like an afterthought. It's such a powerful and privileged position to be in and to finally say, yes, I can touch upon all these themes. And I freed myself completely because I remember having this discussion in our writers’ room: Who are we telling the story to? Are we going to tweak it so non-South Asian or white audiences can understand our story? And I remember telling the room very clearly, no.
We are not going to mellow down, we're not going to shrink, we are not going to over explain. We're just going to tell our story.
Q: There’s also so much subtlety and humanity written into all the main characters…
Shazia Javed: I wanted to be free of this notion of strong women versus weak women, break down the stereotypes of South Asian women being labeled as weak, submissive, OR strong. Whereas all of us have our strengths and weaknesses. Like Sumaira has her own strengths. She's more outgoing, she can be an activist, but she has her own weaknesses. She's a bit prejudiced, maybe she has her own lesson to learn. Ruby is so friendly and warm and she's a great dancer, but she's unable to grasp that she's in a toxic relationship. So that's her lesson to learn. Whereas Azra is so wise. She can advise all the women on what to do with their lives, but she's clinging on to this financial stability or security that she has from her husband. We have the good and the bad, the joys and the sadness. It was so freeing when I made that decision that I'm not going to worry about what people are going to think.
Q: In the past few years, we've seen progress, when it comes to authentic representation on our screens, but there’s still a way to go. Natasha, what’s next for you, as an actor? I'm sure there are still a lot of cliches that are thrown your way, when you go to castings, for example. So after having that experience on Potluck Ladies, how do you envision your future as an actor?
Natasha Krishnan: This is my most substantial role in a South Asian TV series. I haven't done something like this before. I have been part of a South Asian film, but it's been produced and directed by non-South Asian people. So this was very significant for me that it was led by a South Asian team and the story is authentically South Asian. I really hope that this does create more opportunities because it's important to kind of have more of these stories.
And the only way we would see more of these stories is if we have more people like us who come to the forefront and write more of these stories, right? Because mostly we have Caucasian people writing our stories, from a Caucasian lens, which is why you see such stereotypical depictions of the community where it's revolving around arranged marriages or, our people are shown as being the overly smart or the geeky person or the IT person, but it's never us being the main person in the story. So I do hope we see more stories being told in an authentic way moving forward.
Q: And Shazia, as a producer, what are the biggest challenges that remain? And what's next in terms of projects?
Shazia Javed: I've been here 20 years now. And even five, six years ago, whenever you went to a broadcaster, they were like, you have to team up with an experienced person. And we all know what that means. And you sign away your IP, give away the editorial control, give away the creative control, and back then there's no way I would have been able to build the team that I did for Potluck Ladies. So I think I have truly benefited from the policy changes. We were funded in large part by the PPRC, a CMF pilot program for racialized communities. It didn't happen overnight. I just want to acknowledge that there have been lots of trailblazers, lots of amazing people from equity-seeking communities who have been working for these changes for years.
We do have some very amazing projects in development. We have a dramedy about a first-generation immigrant mom who was a cricket player before she had children. She now wants to go back to playing cricket. So what happens in her family? We have that and then we have a psychological thriller in development too. I want to keep experimenting with different genres. I'm a storyteller and I can tell other stories interestingly as well, not just “domestic”, family stories. I want to explore, I want to expand. And that's why I'm in this field because every time, I get to do something new. That's what's next for us.